Churches help improve retirement living

Sadly, some individuals cannot afford to provide their elderly parents with comfortable retirement living accommodations.

Hattie Davis, 63, and her 98-year-old mother live in a mobile home in Beaufort, South Carolina, according to The Beaufort Gazette. Davis has lived in the house for more than 20 years, and it's beginning to fall apart - the walls are riddled with holes, the floorboards sag in some areas and a snake was recently found in the bathroom.

Fortunately, the Elderly Transportable House program recently announced it will give Davis and her mother a new home, reports the publication.

"It is wonderful - I couldn't believe it," Davis told the news source. "I've never seen anything like it. Now, I know what Christmas really is."

The program was founded in 1999 by the United Methodist Relief Center in Mount Pleasant, says the Gazette. Nearly 30 volunteers from the First Presbyterian Church of Hilton Head Island and St. Andrew By-the-Sea United Methodist Church came together to build Davis and her mother their new home, which cost roughly $40,000 to complete and transport.

In January 2009, there were 17 people in Beaufort who were in need of shelter, according to the South Carolina Council on Homelessness. The majority of these people were between the ages of 33 and 52.